Read on Twitter
So today was odd. I didn’t know when I woke that I would write a Twitter thread discussing the problematic portrayal of sexual abuse as sin in an article by an American pastor/ author, and that by day’s end he would issue an apology on here for the same. 
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Here’s the thing: I wrote it off the back of some comments made by guys I follow here. I suspect that if a man had written criticism (as these guys both had before me) or if I had written it just as a woman, it would not have attracted the attention of the author. https://abs.twimg.com/emoji/v2/... draggable="false" alt="⬇️" title="Pfeil nach unten" aria-label="Emoji: Pfeil nach unten">
But it seems that writing about my authentic experience as a rape survivor gave me some validity I wouldn’t otherwise have had. As the author tweeted in his apology, he didn’t “intend to [minimize] the trauma https://abs.twimg.com/emoji/v2/... draggable="false" alt="⬇️" title="Pfeil nach unten" aria-label="Emoji: Pfeil nach unten">
“caused by grievous sins like rape or abuse”. The grievousness of the sin of which I was a victim appears to issue me with a status of reverent suffering. It is almost as though women who have suffered such abuse are offered, in some evangelical circles at least, https://abs.twimg.com/emoji/v2/... draggable="false" alt="⬇️" title="Pfeil nach unten" aria-label="Emoji: Pfeil nach unten">
a status of being set apart by holy suffering.
In the immediate aftermath of my rape, I was told by a male friend: You are so lucky, God has great things in store for you.https://abs.twimg.com/emoji/v2/... draggable="false" alt="😳" title="Errötetes Gesicht" aria-label="Emoji: Errötetes Gesicht"> (He is the reason why I wrote “Be sensitive. It may not be the time to ‘Jesus’ an abuse survivor.”) https://abs.twimg.com/emoji/v2/... draggable="false" alt="⬇️" title="Pfeil nach unten" aria-label="Emoji: Pfeil nach unten">
In the immediate aftermath of my rape, I was told by a male friend: You are so lucky, God has great things in store for you.
My ex evangelical pastor responded this to a narrative about my rape & recovery: “I feel like I’ve just been on hallowed ground, and allowed into something that was intimately beautiful (and paradoxically awful)”. https://abs.twimg.com/emoji/v2/... draggable="false" alt="⬇️" title="Pfeil nach unten" aria-label="Emoji: Pfeil nach unten">
What?! No. NOTHING about being raped is intimately beautiful (fuck that noise). I might have fashioned a creative piece out of the experience, and God can - and, I believe, does - turn our tears of sadness into joy, but in itself the experience was unholy and destructive. https://abs.twimg.com/emoji/v2/... draggable="false" alt="⬇️" title="Pfeil nach unten" aria-label="Emoji: Pfeil nach unten">
To talk of assault/trauma victims with this holy reverence, that we are somehow set apart as having shared in Christ’s suffering, seems so strange to me. Because Christ asked God to take the cup of suffering away from him. And I didn’t willingly and selflessly sacrifice myself https://abs.twimg.com/emoji/v2/... draggable="false" alt="⬇️" title="Pfeil nach unten" aria-label="Emoji: Pfeil nach unten">
in order to suffer with Christ. I survived (meaning: lived beyond) - and for a long time that’s all I did. It took a long time - and a lot of therapy - for me to recover, to come back from it. (In truth there is no coming back, only moving past.) https://abs.twimg.com/emoji/v2/... draggable="false" alt="⬇️" title="Pfeil nach unten" aria-label="Emoji: Pfeil nach unten">
Suffering is encountering evil face to face. Healing and wholeness, recovery and identity in Christ should be the real hallmarks of sacred godliness; THAT’s where the hard work and the holy magic happens - not in having survived the sin of an abuser taken out on our bodies.
